


A Mage's Plight?

by ssampson63



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2019-08-17 10:00:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16514195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssampson63/pseuds/ssampson63
Summary: Ronan Trevelyan is an Apostate mage on the run, when he meets the Iron Bull. He joins the Bull's Chargers but will his past catch up with him? Can he learn to trust people again, or will his past, and his fear of intimacy get in the way?





	1. A Date with Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> No promise of constant updates, this is something I work on for fun, I don't own anything, but it is something I am working on.

Ronan was walking down a road in Val Royal when he felt like he was being followed, he walked around for a bit trying to make sure if he was or wasn’t, but not 2 minutes later it was obvious Ronan had just been paranoid. He took a deep breath held it for a few seconds and breathed out, it had been months since his escape from Tevinter but even still he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was out to get him, whether it be Templars or Tevinter agents.  
Except that he had noticed that man for a reason, he had been acting like he was following someone or looking for them. Following the possible stalker using his magic to help hide himself, one good thing that came from Tevinter was his ability to use strong magic without the help from a staff, he came to a courtyard.  
In the courtyard he saw at least 5 men surrounding one man. "you know, Ashlund, you pissed off the wrong noble, you should have just kept your mouth shut, but it's too late now, we've been ordered to kill you and to make it painful." From the looks of it he might have to step in, the man looked like he could handle himself what with the axe on his back but still the odds weren't in his favor, when 2 more men stepped out from god knows where.  
Before he could talk himself out of it he charged at the man closest to him, trying to remain silent to take the guy by surprise, with a quick snap he broke the man's neck, at the same time he had charged, the man that was being attacked noticed what a stranger was doing and quickly took out his axe and cut down one of the men who was taken by surprise.  
Then it all descended into chaos, Ronan was throwing spells around like candy, sometimes killing the men, sometimes just incapacitating them, while the men tried to land a hit on the one with magic, but he was too quick for them, in his light armor and no weapon. Pretty soon they were taken care of.  
The man, Ashlund was looking at Ronan, weirdly, he just raised an eyebrow in question. Ronan wondered if he saw a bit of fear int the man's eye. "You-aah you're kinda glowing, or ahh your tattoos are." Ronan sighed and looked down, he was giving off the slightest glow and if they had been in daylight it wouldn’t have been noticed. He had kind of gotten used to it at that point.  
"Well I suppose thanks are in order, don’t think I would have survived that. I'm good, but not that good." Ashlund ran a hand through his shoulder length brown hair, "So, thanks, I really appreciate it, I like living, you know?" He smiled at Ronan, throwing him off, it had been months, hell maybe even years since someone had genuinely smiled at him, Markus didn’t count as that whole thing had been a sham to get his power.  
Ronan smiled back, "you're welcome, I noticed a suspicious person and figured someone might need help. I wasn’t going to allow someone to get hurt if I could help it." he started to loot the bodies, looking for money, as he was running dangerously low, like always. He found a surprising amoutn, "this noble you pissed off, must've really wanted you dead," he commented pocketing the near two thousand coins. He also picked up a short sword that looked ideal, now all he would hve to do is find a small channeling crystal that could pass off as a rune.  
" Yeah well I might have said the wrong thing at the wrong time on a job. Who are you then? I mean this is a pretty secluded area and I find it weird that you just happen to be here." Ronan just smirked at him in amusement.  
"it was pure coincidence, I thought he was following me and I went this way to either lose him if he was or determine if he was following me at all. I'm Ronan and obviously I'm an apostate, you got a problem with that? What is it that you do?"  
"No, no problem, in fact my mercenary band has one as well, don’t tell anyone." he said conspiratorially, I work for the Qunari The Iron Bull, with the Bull's Chargers, he's a good boss." Ashlund gave him a considering look, "You should come with me and meet him, he'd want to thank you in person for saving me, and with skills with yours he would welcome you into the group." He was pleading at the end, with a pleading look on his face.  
Normally Ashlund wouldn’t even tell the Iron Bull if something like this had happened, he wouldn’t want to face the embarrassment he would go through by telling, wouldn’t bring this man to his boss, but he wasn’t lying about his skills despite him being a mage, and he could see the world weary look in Ronan's eyes, most of the people who had joined th Bull's Chargers had that look in the beginning, he himself did. Still did sometimes, especially after a night like tonight.  
He could see the worn out clothes he had on, could tell that he had a past, especially the glowing tattoos must have a story behind them. They started on either side of his face mid cheek, chin and went down below his clothes, he could see them on the back of the man's hands. He wondered if they were all over his body.  
But the most important thing he saw was that he was bleeding. Not badly, but enough he might need stitches or healing magic. "you're bleeding! Here let me help ypu, since you helped me."  
Ronan looked down, and put his hand to his side only for it to come out bloody, pressing on it a little there was slight pain but nothing more and knew it wasn’t too serious "Guess I am," Ronan shifted in his feet and looked at anything but Ashlund, he was reluctant to go with him, he didn’t trust Ashlund, but then maybe saving his life will count for something.  
Ronan snapped his head up looking Ashlund firmly in the eye. "Fine, but if you try anything I'll fry you." completely deadpan, with sparks of electricity in his right hand, he wasn’t going to let himself be taken for a fool again.  
Ash looked at him startled, wondering if he made the right choice, "Ahh right, well just call me Ash, most people do, also while we are at the camp Stitches can patch you up."  
They walked in silence. Finally they made it to the camp. Ronan could hear the low rumble of multiple voices speaking, the camp fire roaring, and the hustle and bustle of a group of people, maybe around twenty or so people milling about. Ronan could start to feel the day's events catching up with him, he took a seat on the nearest thing he could sit on.  
Ronan wondered if this was a good idea. Even if it wasn’t, he could just spend tonight, nothing more. Finally someone noticed their arrival, or maybe Ash went to get someone, he realized he should have been paying better attention.  
"Ash, good of you to join us. I was wondering, if you had gotten lost or something, we were about to send out a search party. and you brought a friend." a loud, deep voice spoke, Ronan sat up attentively, the voice held authority in it, he lookde over to where the voice originated from and barely stopped himself from letting out a gasp of appreciation.  
He had never seen a qunari before even though he had heard of them. He was huge, almost seven feet tall if not taller, with grey skin and scars along his body, with an eyepatch. And his horns, were big, with broad shoulders. He wondered if he was proportioned like the rest of him. Ronan scolded himself for that thought, he couldn’t think like that.  
"Boss, this is Ronan, and he, well he saved my life tonight, he's bleeding, so I figured we could patch him up, let him sleep here tonight." Ash stopped talking and motioned to Bull he wanted to speak more privately,  
"Boss he's a mage, but he took out most of the men that attacked me, I know it's not my place but well I think you should hire him." Iron Bull studied him,  
"I know, I saw, I was there, I figured you would be attacked so I followed you, I was going to intervene, but your friend beat me to it, and I decided to watch only to step in if it was needed, which it wasn’t. You think we can trust him?" Iron Bull asked. He could tell the man had secrets, everyone did, but he couldn’t tell if these would be ones to bite him in the ass one day.  
"Yes boss, I do, it's obvious he has a past but doesn’t every single one of your chargers hve one? I think he will fit right in." now it was only a matter if Ronan would agree to stay on.  
Ronan lookde at the two of them in stunned disbelief. A man he had never met before wanted him to join his mercenary band. But why? And what if he was untrustworthy or after the Iron Bull for whatever reason. He pointed that out.  
"Well?" a moment of silence. "Are you any of those things?" Iron Bull asked scrutinizing him.  
"no, I'm not,"  
"Good, its settled then. Krem!" the Bull shouted. A shorter man came walking up. "I need you to share a tent with the new recruit!"  
"Aww but chief, that was part of our deal when I came on, I wouldn’t have to."  
"and you also said if need be you would make exceptions, and this is one of those times." the man Krem was level with them now, and was looking the new guy over. Krem wasn’t all that impressed, he was small for a human male, with clothes that had seen better days.  
"Chief! Are you sure he can handle it? He looks like one good gust of wind would blow him over." Krem said. Ronan laughed, he knew he must look like shit, but that bad! Krem eyed him like he was crazy.  
"Yes Krem, I saw him fight, also I want you to teach him the ropes, what we do, how we do it, and teach him how to use the sword he picked up!" Krem rolled his eyes, just a little put out, but knew he couldn’t get out of it.  
"Wait! You're just assuming that I'm going to join you guys. I haven't even agreed to it yet!" Ronan protested. Hell he had just got here, he expected maybe to spend the night and then go on his merry way in the morning, not really wanting to join a mercenary band.  
The Iron Bull just looked at him intensely, looking for something, Ronan almost looked away in his nervousness of having the full attention of the giant man. Apparently he found it, "But you want it, you're tired of constantly watching your back, of wondering where you will go next. But most of all you want companionship. The Chargers can give you that." the Iron Bull paused, "Unless I'm wrong, and if I am, then you can be on your way." and he walked away. Ronan stared, the qunari was something else.  
"You coming or what?" Ronan stood still before making his decision. He nodded. "I'm Kremisius Aclassi but just call me Krem. The Iron Bull is in charge and if he says to do something you do it. He's a good boss, he'll never ask you to do something that he himself wouldn't do. And I'm his second in command, you also do what I ask, except if Bull supersedes it, which he doesn’t do often. Got any questions?"  
"Not yet, but if I do I know who to ask. I'm Ronan," Krem raised an eyebrow in question. "Ronan Trevelyan" Krem nodded.  
"You got any experience with that?" he nodded at the sword on Ronan's hip.  
"Enough to use it, but not enough to say I'm good at it. I'm a mage, I mostly used the sword as a precaution, because someone travelling with no weapons and no goods to sell or trade looks suspicious, if I have a sword, people think I'm a merc or something similar. Plus they see a sword and don’t expect that person to throw magic at them." Krem was honestly surprised that this man was a mage, he didn’t carry a staff, but he see the reasoning behind his explanation for the sword.  
After learning that piece of information, Krem could start to see why the Bull wanted this man in his Chargers. He still thought that one stiff wind would knock him down, and if he didn’t have a staff how much damage would he actually be able to do. Krem thought he would last two weeks before quitting. If Krem had known have the things he had been through, well he wouldn't have thought like that.  
"Apostate?" Ronan looked at him with a 'duh' look on his face.  
"Obviously, aren't most mages running around without a Templar escort?" Krem had been leading them over to a tent as they had been talking. It appeared to be smaller than the others, but then he hadn't needed to share before.  
"this will be our tent, all I ask is that if I'm changing in here you either leave or look the other way."  
"I can respect that, if you will do the same." Krem wondered if he was being polite, or if he had something to hide.  
Krem looked at Ronan and saw he had very little with him, he would have to speak to Bull about getting him much needed clothes and gear.


	2. Fighting to Live

Two months Later 

Ronan had easily got into the swing of things and how they worked. He had made some friends but he wasn’t xlose with anyone. On this particular day though, things had not been going his way. 

Ronan was sweating heavily, having just finished off a decent group of attackers. 'How did so many men sneak up on us?' He thought to himself. Looking around he saw that others like him had finished off their groups of enemies. He didn’t see anyone he considered to be the Bull's Inner Circle, the people he trusted above all else. He wondered if they were okay, if the Iron Bull was okay. 

Ronan was worried that there were more and that some people migth need help. He took a deep breath and sent out his magic for the Iron Bull, and the Inner Circle. He sensed that the Bull was a few hundred yards north but he couldn’t tell where the others were. 

"Come on, we should go find the Bull!" Ronan shouted to be heard, to the others that were around. Two of them scoffed, and the others just shook their heads. 

"He's the Iron fucking Bull, he can take care of himself!" Roger shouted back sarcastically. James, and Nate nodded along with him. Not caring one way or another what happened to the leader. They thought that if he died they could either find another mercenarry group, or Krem would take over, either way didn’t really affect them. They in fact didn’t really like the Iron Bull, they thought that he trained them too hard, and was too lenient on prisoners. 

'well damn' Ro thought, that just made fighting that much harder if Bull was still fighting enemies. But he took off running, he had a sense of urgency about him that he didn’t really understand, but had come to trust his gut, most of the time it wasn’t wrong, or maybe it was his magic? 

Not minutes later he was grateful that he had rushed over, as he saw a swordsman in Iron Bull's blind spot going in for an attack. He didn’t call out knowing that would just distract Bull from the person he was fighting at his front. He threw a spell at the attacker, who started to flee as he caught on fire. Ronan came up behind Bull, "I've got your back, Chief!" He said. Ro had been surprised by how many people were around the Bull trying to bring him down, he also found it strange that Bull was alone, where were any of the others? 

Ro was so focused on the group of melee attackers around them, that he never noticed the multiple archers in the trees. He did notice when an arrow was shooting towards him, but he had no time to react, his instinct was to duck, or dodge but he knew if he did that, then the Bull would get hit. Ro didn’t want that to happen, he thought that he was much more expendable than the Iron Bull was. 

So he was hit in the shoulder. He grunted, and Ro was momentarily stunned from the pain, but then he saw a sword coming at him from an angle and parried as best as he could. He shot a bolt of ice at the attacker, using his lyrium to hopefully kill the guy. Anouther arrow came at him, it hit him in the side, he fell to his knees. Feeling the edges of oncoming unconsciousness. He knew that he needed to stave it off though and got back up, in time to bloxk a blow that was aimed at the Iron Bull's back, the attacker thinking that Ro was down. 

"Where are the others?" Bull asked, 

"the others I was with said that you could take care of yourself, I don’t know about your Inner Circle, but id imagine that they are together and holding their own if they havent finished off their enemies yet." Ro grunted. "Can you call for backup?" He asked, he sent out some of his magic, looking for all the enemies near them, there were still like twenty of them, none of their allies even close to where they were. 

Ronan was getting worried that they wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. "No I don’t have my horn on me" Ronan was even more worried now because his boss didn’t make a quip about how that was more fun. He looked at the corner of his eye and saw the small, but there signs that the Bull was tiring. 

Ro knew what he had to do, even though he wasn’t happy about it, and was worried about what Bull might think or do. He knew that Bull didn’t like magic, and worried that what he was going to do would scare the other man. "I have an idea, but When I say down, you fucking get down!" Ro told his boss. 

"Why?" 

"because the magic will hit you and most likely kill you!" Ro grit out, already having started the chanting in his head for the spell. The magic pooling into the crystal in his sword. His tattoos and the crystal glowing in the fading light. 

"you think thats a good idea?" 

"not seeing any other option!" Ro yelled at him. At that point he started to chant out loud, having more power than if he only did it in his head. All the while fighting the opponents around him. The wind picked up, buffetting everyone and everything around them, everyone but Ro and the Iron Bull were losing their balance as the became strong. He was almost at the height of his spell, just a few more seconds, he couldn’t hold onto the magic any longer, "down!" Pointing the sword out in front of him, in his minds eye he saw where the enemies were and cut the wind towards them, in a circle, until he was sure that they were all down for the count, if they werent dead. The release of all that magic was overwhelming to him, he had never felt so tired in his life. 

He fell to his knees again, but didn’t get up this time, he heard Bull speaking, he didn’t know what, "I'm gonna-" but he had passed out already. He was out like a light for three days. 

Ten minutes earlier with the Iron Bull 

The Iron Bull was not scared. Battle hadnt scared him in a long time, but he was getting fatigued, and slightly nervous, more so for his Charger's than himself, but he was thinking, if he was this overwhelmed, then how were his men? Unless he was the target. 

The Bull noticed the guy in his blind spot, just a little too late and he thought he was going to receive a painful, deep wound to his side, before that happened the man was frozen. For a second he thought it would be Krem, or Skinner, as they were among his best fighters, no! It was the new blood! Bull wondered why it was him of all people. Not that he didn’t trust Ronan, he did, but ever since he had joined, he never did anything to draw attention to himself. After this, if they survived, he knew that he would have to draw the other man out somehow. Bull could see the improvement he had been making. 

And then to hear that the man had his back, was also welcome. He knew from experience that some people wouldn’t help others if they weren't being attacked themselves. And then feeling the strong magic in the air had made him nervous until he realized it was from the man behind him and not an enemy. Seeing what that did to just about twenty men impressed him immensely. And made him nervous. 

"are you alright?" He asked. But got no answer. He turned only to see the man with two arrows in his chest, luckily he could see that they weren't too serious. But to know that someone who was almost a virtual stranger head taken not one but two arrows for him, for Bull knew that had Ronan wanted to he could have ducked them. Only for them to hit him instead, he didn’t know what ot think. Bull picked him up, hoping to get to camp quickly, and hoping that Stitches was there and okay. 

The Iron Bull had been pleasantly surprised when Ronan turned out to be the most serious injury. The Bull must have been the target for this attack, even though he didn’t know why. At least not yet.


End file.
